3 dead, hundreds evacuated in Colorado flooding

September 13, 2013|Reuters

BOULDER, Colo., — Rare torrential downpours unleashed flash flooding in Colorado that killed at least three people, left one missing and forced thousands to flee to higher ground on Thursday as rising water toppled buildings and stranded motorists, officials said.

The unusually heavy late-summer rains drenched Colorado's biggest urban centers, stretching 130 miles along the eastern slopes of the Rockies from Fort Collins near the Wyoming border south through Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs. "There is water everywhere," said Andrew Barth, emergency management spokesman in Boulder County, which bore the brunt of tropical-like rains one meteorologist called unprecedented. "We've had several structural collapses. There's mud and muck and debris everywhere. Cars are stranded all over the place."

The city of Boulder and a string of other towns nestled along the so-called Front Range of the Rockies north of Denver were especially hard hit as floodwaters streamed down rain-soaked mountainsides and spilled through canyons that funneled the runoff into populated areas below.

"The street was like a river, and I knew it was time to go," said Kitty Kintzing, 65, who fled her ground-floor apartment at the mouth of Boulder Canyon on Thursday morning and took shelter at an American Red Cross facility in town.

"I've never seen anything like this," said Kintzing, an artist who has lived in Boulder, a city of roughly 97,000 people northwest of Denver, since 1969.

President Barack Obama approved a federal disaster assistance request, which will release funds to help with emergency protection, Governor John Hickenlooper's office said late on Thursday.

National Guard troops were dispatched with emergency supplies to the remote town of Lyons, north of Boulder, which was virtually cut off from surrounding areas when floodwaters washed out U.S. Route 36, county officials said.

Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said Lyons reported that its residents were without fresh running water and that its sewage treatment plant had been knocked out. Two other towns, Jamestown and Estes Park, were also cut off by road washouts.

A dozen major roads in northeastern Colorado remained shut with significant damage from flooding, mudslides, rockfalls and other debris, the Colorado Department of Transportation said.

Heavy summer rains known as monsoons are not unusual for Colorado, but the intensity and duration of this week's downpour was extraordinary, especially this late in the season, said Todd Dankers, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Boulder.

The latest deluge began on Monday night with steady rains that persisted through Wednesday and grew heavier overnight. Driving, steady showers continued almost unabated in Boulder through late Thursday afternoon, and Dankers said rain was not expected to taper off much before midday on Friday.

A flood watch was extended until 6 a.m. on Friday for the entire Front Range, he said.

Low-lying areas beyond the foothills were also susceptible. An estimated 2,000 to 3,000 people were ordered evacuated from Commerce City, a blue-collar suburb of Denver, when a retaining pond overflowed and flooded surrounding streets, police said.

Additional evacuations might be necessary due to a separate dam breach at a retaining pond in the nearby Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, police spokesman Christian Rasmussen said.

UNPRECEDENTED RAINFALL

The prolonged downpour came from an atmospheric low-pressure system parked over Nevada and western Utah that was drawing extremely moist air out of Mexico and streaming it north into the southern Rockies, Dankers said.

Nearly 150 people were killed near Boulder in 1976 by a flash flood along the Big Thompson Canyon.

While the death toll from the latest floods was much lower, Dankers said the scope of this week's rainfall was unprecedented in the Front Range.

One body was found in a collapsed building near Jamestown, an evacuated enclave of about 200 people just north of Boulder. A couple were swept away in floodwaters after stopping their car along a rain-swollen creek northwest of Boulder.

The man's body was later recovered but the woman was missing and feared dead, according to Commander Heidi Prentup of the Boulder County Sheriff's Office.

The body of a third confirmed fatality, a man, was found by police on flood-watch patrols in Colorado Springs, about 100 miles to the south, officials said.

At least 9-1/2 inches of rain was measured over the past three days in Boulder, a city that typically averages just 1-1/2 inches of rainfall for all of September.

The rains transformed Boulder Creek, which runs through the heart of the city and the University of Colorado's Boulder campus, into a raging torrent that spilled over its banks and flooded adjacent parking lots and streets.